Speculation about films never released on home video from WB. (1 Viewer)

[Corey]

WHV said they're having a promotion this year with films that were never released on any home video format including Caged and Queen of Outer Space. What other films can they release that are well known and not obscure??

 

[Charles H]

WB did release QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE on VHS. I would kill for STORY OF MANKIND, HOME BEFORE DARK, WHERE'S CHARLEY, SUSIE SLADE, PERFECT STRANGERS, THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND, TOWARDS THE UNKNOWN, MARY, MARY, CLOSE TO MY HEART, ROOM FOR ONE MORE, THAT HAGEN GIRL, SHE'S WORKING HER WAY THROUGH COLLEGE, DESERT SONG (1943), BACKFIRE, ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON< THREE SAILORS AND A GIRL, MISSION TO MOSCOW, I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI, THE MOONLIGHTER, and these are only the titles that WB actually released theatrically. QUEEN was an Allied Artists film.

 

[CineKarine]

Now that I am straightened out about who owns The Glass Menagerie (50) , that could be one, although chances are it would most likely show up in a set devoted to great plays. The Blue Veil (51) would be a treasure to have as well.

Not sure how well-known it is, but I was always fascinated with Lizzie (57) which boasts a marvellous Eleanor Parker performance in a really hysterical multiple-personality story. Much more fun than the acclaimed Three Faces of Eve.

Not sure if this set will be devoted to the 50s only?

If there is no set planned for Greer Garson, I would love to see a DVD of Her Twelve Men (54), a lovely sentimental treat with Robert Ryan as a (nice) teacher.

Speaking of Ryan, another great addition would be Nicholas Ray's Born to Be Bad (50) with sweet-faced Joan Fontaine as a cold-hearted scheming woman. And The Woman on Pier 13 (51), another rather hysterical film, which is probably too cartoonish to ever show up in a film noir set?

If any musicals are included, my votes would go to Three Sailors and a Girl (53), Starlift (51), Painting the Clouds with Sunshine (51) and Ten Thousand Bedrooms (57).

 

[walter o]

well, here are some films WB owns that was never released on video that might have a cult following I can think of, off the top of my head

DEALING
DUSTY AND SWEETS MCGEE
THE PHYNX
WICKED, WICKED
NOTHIG LASTS FOREVER
CRESCENDO
NO BLADES OF GRASS

 

[Corey]

OMG, I would faint if they released Born to Bad!! Fontaine and Robert Ryan...

 

[Charles Ellis]

I would love the original Sweet November with Sandy Dennis (I'd watch her in anything!) and Anthony Newley- why the crappy remake is out on DVD is beyond me. With Up the Down Staircase coming, this may be a hopeful sign for more of Sandy's WB films.

 

[walter o]

It would be nice if WB can also release THE FOX on DVD as well.

 

[serenapowell]

Ahem, I guess these wouldn't fit in with a movie called "Queen Of Outer Space" But I don't really know if they need to fit in, and anyway...

These are the films Warner owns that I'm really hankering for, which (as far as I can tell from the IMDb) were never on home video - I'll be very surprised and overjoyed if they make it to DVD:

HER HIGHNESS AND THE BELLBOY (Hedy Lamarr, June Allyson, Robert Walker, Agnes Moorehead, Rags Ragland) - one of June's most touching performances (I know Warner said in the last chat there were no plans for Hedy Lamarr - but this is really June's movie as far as I'm concerned )

MUSIC FOR MILLIONS (Margaret O'Brien, June Allyson, Jimmy Durante, José Iturbi, Marsha Hunt) - a bittersweet wartime drama (with classical music, but not really a musical), directed by Henry Koster who worked with Deanna Durbin on some of her best films.

SEVEN SWEETHEARTS (Kathryn Grayson, Van Heflin, Marsha Hunt, S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall) - well I just love this cast, Kathryn & Cuddles are adorable and Van's charming as always, and the very versatile, sadly underrated Marsha Hunt gets a chance to show off her comedic talents!

THREE SAILORS AND A GIRL (Jane Powell, Gordon MacRae, Gene Nelson) - one of the few Jane Powell movies I've never seen! CinéKarine's made it sound so good in other threads, I'd be interested even if I wasn't a Jane Powell fan. But I am. A biiiiig Jane Powell fan. Please release it!

And last but not least... SO BIG!, which as I've mentioned elsewhere, contains one of Barbara Stanwyck's best performances, which should've been nominated for (and won!) an Oscar, in my opinion.

 

[CineKarine]

What about all these well-known films :

The Voice of the Turtle (47)
Room for One More (52) (maybe in the next Cary Grant set though)
Return of the Frontiersman (50)
Honeymoon (47)
Princess O'Rourke (43)
Bright Road (53)
The Hard Way (43)
The Big Land (57)
Too Young to Kiss (51)
The Man with a Cloak (51)
Second Chance (53)

All the films you mentioned get my vote too Serena!!!!!

 

[Corey]

Well Warners said no Hedy Lamarr anytime soon, so Her Highness and the Bellboy is out of the question. I'm guessing that these films that'll get released are films people have been wanting for a very long time. I've seen Caged asked about since the 2004 HTF chat. I wonder how many they're releasing too. I 'm not expecting them them to be all classics either. Probably 5 classics and 5 contemporary films.

 

[Corey]

TCM has 5,245 titles in their database and only 3.65% are on home video. Yikes!!!!

 

[CineKarine]

Well, Born to Be Bad (50) is among the top 30 on TCM's Wanted on DVD list.

 

[Corey]

Bring it to papa, please!!!

 

[serenapowell]

CinéKarine - "Princess O'Rourke" -- good one! Has that never been on home video?! I actually prefer it to "Roman Holiday" (which was inspired by "O'Rourke", I believe) I'm hoping for an Olivia de Havilland collection.


Well...some I've wanted for a long time, others I've only recently discovered. But I hope Warner won't hold that against me!

 

[Dave B Ferris]

If Laserdisc still counts as a home video format, then 'Born to be Bad' has in
fact been released on home video -- I'm happy to own the LD.

I'll offer a charming WB film, shown only rarely on TCM, that - to my knowledge - has never been released on VHS or LD or any other home video format: 'The
Very Thought of You', directed by Delmer Daves, starring Dennis Morgan and
Eleanor Parker.

 

[CineKarine]

Dave, I never got into LD, so not aware of all the releases on that format.

Serena, same thing about Princess O'Rourke (43), I've always liked it much better than Roman Holiday (53) somehow.

Here's an interesting, very recent article about the very topic we are discussing (encompassing more than the WB titles though) :

Long-lost gems finally make way to DVD
Many classics still waiting for disc releases

By DIANE GARRETT

Ten years into the DVD era, "The Wizard of Oz" has been issued a handful of times, and "Terminator 2" at least three. Sharon Stone's nearly forgotten "Sliver" has come out in unrated form; even such musty TV skeins as "Hazel" and "ALF" have made their way to disc.
But thousands of worthy offerings -- some that never made it to VHS, let alone DVD -- remain MIA as the industry gears up for next-generation delivery mechanisms like high-def discs and digital downloads.

Among the missing: classics such as "The African Queen," the Beatles' "Let It Be," works by John Ford, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Roman Polanski, Sidney Lumet and Karel Reisz, such popular skeins as "The Wonder Years" and cult pics like "Toxic Zombies."

While the reasons vary with each title, they tend to revolve around rights issues, restoration requirements or small perceived demand compared with bigger, or at least more recent, hits.

"We're still scratching the surface of the great films out there," says Criterion Collection prexy Peter Becker.

"There's still stuff left, believe it or not," agrees Shout! Factory prexy Garson Foos, who's champing at the bit for rights to some of the retro fare.

Although there are more than 70,000 titles on disc in the U.S. and Canada, there are still huge gaps. Warner Home Video, for example, has a library of 6,700 titles but has released only 1,400 on DVD. Its mandate: 200-250 disc bows a year, not counting reissues.

"The list for us is staggering, overwhelming," says Warner Home Video

senior VP of catalog marketing George Feltenstein. "Where do we start?"

The backlog has gotten so severe Warner and Criterion have begun exploring alternate ways to distribute their riches. Criterion recently created a no-frills label, while Warner has started funneling pics such as Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet" through Amazon's Unbox download service.

A "Hamlet" DVD is on the way, but in the meantime the $9.99 download is one of Unbox's most popular movies.

Criterion, on the other hand, is devoting its new Eclipse line to worthy, but overshadowed, works. The first installment, of early Ingmar Bergman pics, comes March 27 with "Torment," "Crisis," "Port of Call," "Thirst" and "To Joy"; one month later, a set of Louis Malle docus arrives, including "Phantom India."

Becker says Criterion decided to launch Eclipse after seeing the pent-up demand for helmers' less-celebrated films in retrospectives mounted by its theatrical distribution counterpart, Janus Films.

Criterion often takes years to prepare special editions, which meant many films were going unreleased. "We realized we are, in effect, suppressing these films while we are waiting to give them special edition treatment," Becker says.

"We are taking a fairly light hand in restoration of these films, but we are certainly taking the best master we can," he says. "The goal is to make films available."

Meanwhile, the boutique label's still devoting exacting care to releases of long-missing classics like Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole" and Lindsay Anderson's "If ..." Becker also enthuses about esoterica such as William Greaves' 1968 doc-style "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One," which helmers Steven Soderbergh and Steve Buscemi recommended.

Warner's Feltenstein has been chasing down rights or materials for certain titles for decades. He pursued rights to Max Fleischer's Popeye cartoons for almost 20 years; it took 27 to sort out issues with the Irving Berlin estate for "Annie Get Your Gun" and 11 to iron out an agreement with John Steinbeck's estate for a DVD release of "East of Eden."

"Only right now are we able to release 'The Magnificent Ambersons,' " he says. Orson Welles' 1942 adaptation of Booth Tarkington's novel, one of Warner's most requested titles, will come out on disc next year.

Music issues have proven especially thorny, bedeviling the disc bows of "My So-Called Life," "Let It Be," "Wonder Years" and "Ally McBeal."

"Let It Be" has proven popular over the years, with VHS copies commanding premium prices on sites trafficking in rare videos.

In other cases, the rights have expired and they've yet to be locked up by another entity.

Fox had the rights to "The African Queen," but they lapsed, so now Paramount has control of the 1951 John Huston pic. According to Par, it's awaiting restoration and has no set release date.

However, there isn't necessarily a market for everything.

"There are thousands of films not financially viable to release on DVD," Feltenstein says. "I always say, just because it's old doesn't mean it's a classic."

 

[Corey]

It's to my knowledge that this promotion is for films that never made it to LD, VHS, or dvd. What if they sprung out a whopper like Letty Lynton???

 

[flagbrothers]

"The World, The Flesh and The Devil" is currently own by Warner Bros by way of MGM. I hope they release this soon.

 

[Art_AD]

I guess we have to find out if this promo is for "Camp films" that were never out on video of the real classics (like Old Acquaintance). In my opinion every "star" set that comes out should include a least one film that was never released before.

 

[Rod J]

Just received the RKO "Hitler's Children", 1943 from France. Has that been released in the us.

Look at the RKO dvds available in France (R2 with removable french subtitles).

Ambersons, Wagon Master, Behind the Rising Sun, The Window, Thirteen Women....

c'mon Warner..